Hope and Other Useless Things
by soaring-smiles
Summary: It's a perfectly nice planet. Until they shoot her. (once she was a goddess, and held the stars in her palm) [TenRose]


_I was born to hustle roses down the avenues of the dead_

_charles bukowski- consummation of grief_

* * *

It comes out of stagnant air, the curious, still horror that races through them both, as the blast rings in her ears. She raises a hand to her chest curiously, numb with something she can't explain.

_Oh_, she thinks, staring at the red and brown mess coating her fingers, the slick feeling pulsing out of her. Her knees buckle; she hits the floor at an odd angle and hears shouting, words distant, lost.

And his face is in front of her, eyes so wide and bright they look like stars. His arm comes around her waist, so tight. _Don't_, she thinks he says, but she can't hear the words, only feel the vibrations of his throat against the top of her head.

She counts his freckles like constellations, tracing Orion onto his neck before everything withers and swims into black.

* * *

"Tell me," she says, staring at the stars in front of her, the ones she could graze with her fingertips, if she wanted,"why."

"Why what?" he asks. She can smell tea and mint in the fabric of his jacket, struggles to remember what the other him smelled like. His voice is light, playful, but she can see the lines of his face etched deep, all without looking at him.

"Me," she says simply.

There's a hand on her shoulder, his head above hers, pinstripes touching the thin cotton of her shirt. She's not sure what she's expecting, really. A heart-felt declaration, some sort of reason, an I-saw-something-from-the-start to pet her little bruised ego.

Just something.

"Dunno," he says, staring out in front of him. His fingers fall from her body, land in his own pocket. "Seemed the thing to, do, really. Well, I say...you know. Lonely, I suppose. No, no I don't suppose. Definitely. Definitely lonely. Yeah." He sniffs. "I was lonely."

"Okay."

The night is so dark, so magnetising, bleeding pinpoints of light scratching through the inky black. He's chosen someplace with no distracting supernovas, no galaxies spiralling into blinding colour, no suns. Just stars and nothing.

She thinks of Croyden and Aberdeen, and how they're so far apart really, how street signs are so easy to check. How he could think maybe Naples and Cardiff was the same thing, hundred years no difference. How he's so, so big and she...

She's just _small_.

"I should find Mickey," she says eventually. He nods distractedly, still staring out at space, searching for an answer to some question she won't know. She can see the tensing in his back, the lines of him twisted and raised.

"She was nice, Sarah-Jane," Rose adds suddenly, halfway to the console, looking fixedly at a crooked lever he'll probably fix tonight.

She wonders if someone will say that about her, someday. If the memories in his mind will fade to sepia, corners crinkling and ageing, into something he won't think to mention, simply because-because-

Well, she won't matter by then. Wouldn't expect to, anyway.

* * *

_come on Rose_

_hands, pressing down on her breastbone, a ragged pain lancing through her body-choked breath turning into something wet and metallic dripping down her chin_

_stay with me_

_cold metal under her back, fabric falling away from her body; it's cold, it's so so cold_

_please, Rose_

_she can't breathe, just feels- something pricking her elbow, the sharp agony tearing her chest apart, gentle fingers on her forehead_

_I'm going to fix you_

_he was always so good at that, wasn't he; fixing things, wiring everything back together _

_oh god I'm so sorry_

_she wonders if he can fix this_

* * *

She shags Mickey, after.

She doesn't mean to, not really, only wanders with tired feet and sore eyes to his door to ask if he needs anything, if he wants to gloat a little more about the uncrowned queen.

"Yeah," he says, looking at her with sad, dark eyes. "I reckon you need it too."

So he kisses her, and she kisses back and it ends up with the doona tossed on the floor and his hands up her shirt, mouth halfway down her neck.

She closes her eyes, shatters into a dozen little shards and bites her lip to keep from saying the wrong name.

And in the morning, everything is exactly the same except for the Doctor stares at the mark on her collarbone and puts the plate in the sink too hard.

She wants to smile, but keeps imagining them kissing, his hands deftly undoing laces, the beads and gems on her dress shimmering and glinting as it dropped to the pretty marble floor. As she-

Rose swallows, not hungry enough for toast.

"I've got something brilliant," the Doctor says, smiling in the way she knows means he's cruel or miserable or both. "Rose, you're going to love it. Remind you of the time on that funfair planet, the one with the sentient roller coasters."

"Oh," she says, staring at the pastel green of her mug, the wooden table with a crack in it from where he slammed down the toaster so forcefully it broke, "yeah."

The silence is so heavy she can almost feel it pressing down on her shoulders, until she finally adds, "you woulda loved that, Mickey."

The bloke in question jerks up from his breakfast, enquiring face on, slightly jealous expression and brittle smile. "Sorry, what?"

And the Doctor's off, talking about all their lovely, shiny adventures, about all the things _'you had to be there to understand'_ but when he takes her hand he holds it so hard and desperately it hurts.

It's okay; she gets it.

* * *

_it's so pretty here, so white and calm and soft, like she could linger here and never feel anything ever again_

_you've got to wake up, Rose_

_she doesn't want to open her eyes, doesn't want to go back to him and his whiplash moods, the quiet moments and careless knife-sharp words tossed at her like daggers_

_Rose_

_she just wants to sleep, far away from french princesses and damaged middle-aged journalists and old ghosts that seem to haunt them both, that stick to her skin and pierce both his hearts when he looks at her_

_just come back to me, Rose, I'm sorry-just-just I can't-not without-_

_isn't he the one who taught her to look past her own imagined limitations?_

* * *

Mickey leaves and that's fine. Just goddamned fine, alright, she's fine. The grating digs into her thighs and he's staring at her and she's curled up and not crying and god, she's _fine_.

Shit. Shit. She thinks of that time Mickey kissed her after school, and when she kissed him back, when Jimmy Stones beat her up so bad she couldn't walk and he was the only one she could call.

He was a puppet to her, wasn't he? And she pulled the strings, but only when she chose. Made him dance. Shit.

She feels sick.

"Rose," says the Doctor. His fingers clear hair from her forehead and she feels like a tiny child, like she's lost and scared and alone, that hot sinking feeling when she couldn't find her mum at the market.

Her fingers curl into his lapel, her head on his shoulder. Something burns in her throat, bright and acidic. Carefully, he lifts her up, until she's shaking on her feet, until she feels the floor swim underneath her, anchored only by the solid press of his hands on her waist, his hearts beating steadily, counter-point to the chaotic hysteria tangled in her head.

She's not gonna cry. _She's not gonna cry. _

"Oh, I'm sorry," he murmurs and she laughs, cause he's not. Cause he wants her to himself, cause he's jealous of the shared years behind garden sheds and dancing in pubs.

He's scared he'll lose her to a life with Tesco's and an apartment and two kids clinging to her dress. Terrified she'll leave and become one of them, the happily mediocre, the ones who eat beans and watch reality shows.

That she won't be fantastic anymore.

Rose feels his fingers falling down her hair, strands catching on callouses, and then he pulls her into him, shirt rasping against her cheek, buttons digging into her nose. His voice is a whisper in her ear, soft and encouraging and _you'll be alright, Rose, it's for the best, everything's right, he'll be happy._

Yeah. He will.

She hides in his arms, eyes screwed against the world, and pretends that isn't what hurts the most.

That she isn't turning into the Doctor, a little bit.

* * *

_I'm going to take you to a planet where the sky burns pink, and you can wear that white and yellow dress and I won't make you do anything you don't want to, I swear, I'll get you anything you like, I'll- Rassilon, I'll do anything, sweetheart_

_lips on her forehead, soft, burning as he touches her cheek like she will shatter under his palm, and she doesn't want his 'sweetheart's or the planet or the dress, his beautiful empty promises like fractured glass, shining so brightly in the light and breaking so easy on the concrete _

_do you remember Woman Wept? I think about that sometimes, Rose, when I can't get to sleep, you looked like the universe had just given you all its secrets and I can't remember that feeling, Rose, I just can't see it anymore, the raw wonder of it all_

_there's such a pain in her chest, such a stabbing in her brain, the machine shrieks in tempo, she starts shaking, arching up, thick liquid metal slipping out of her mouth, copper in her tongue and between her teeth_

_no, shit, hold on, Rose, it's just a failure in the system, just keep breathing easy_

_once she was a goddess and held the stars in her palm_

_come on, come on, COME ON_

_but now she's just a girl and a dying one at that_

* * *

He sleeps in her room, after. Curls up in the armchair, lays his head on his hands. Watches her soundlessly, gaze locked on her cheeks, her mouth, her nose. He's so pale, eyes so wide and stunned. She can see his knuckles in the light leaking through the closed door; clenched and white.

She falls asleep to the sound of his rough breath, bare legs tangled in the sheets, dreaming of monsters and and how she let one massacre a bunker in the middle of the desert.

And then, he's sliding off his jacket and tie, waking her up soundlessly as he climbs warily in next to her, back hunched. He's facing her, knee brushing awkwardly against her thigh, and she feels something sad and nervous flutter in her throat.

"I could have lost you," he says like it's a revelation. Like he couldn't ever have before. She inhales as he exhales, mismatched but together. "Rose," he sighs, and leans in so they are so close she can feel the heat and sorrow pouring off him. "_Rose_."

"I'm fine," she mumbles sleepily. "Promise."

"I..." He swallows. "I'm sorry."

"Okay."

He touches her face, gently. "You looked so...empty," he confesses. "Just blank. Gone." His jaw works desperately, and he moves his hand to her waist, to drag her closer. She can feel bruises where his fingertips are.

He doesn't hold her, really. It's more crushing, the way he forces their bodies to meld into each other, hip to hip, chests rising and falling in tandem. He presses his face in her hair, and when she pretends to be asleep, he whispers he'll protect her better, now.

Morning comes, breaks the silent peace. He's quiet, his grip slackened and mouth open slightly. She looks at his long eyelashes and freckles, messy hair falling prettily over his forehead and sees the man he might have been, if the war hadn't gotten there first.

* * *

_I am NOT going to lose you like this _

_the universe does not turn on his say-so, the stars don't burn because he want them to, galaxies do not reform on his whim, and she will not wake up for his pleading, not even when his fingertips trace his language on her mouth like it's her salvation_

_when you wake up, we'll go to Barcelona_

_and he is the king of battered hope; she would have lost it long ago_

* * *

It's a perfectly nice planet, really, and he holds her hand like she'll disappear if he doesn't. _It lied_, sighs her head, and he smiles at her with straight, bared teeth. The sky is soft and blue, the grass waving and rolling into hills. Toby's eyes follow her wherever she looks.

He is in pinstripes and she wears a skirt for once, and he looks at her legs and she pretends she doesn't notice. The sun is raw and aching, but he presses an iced drink into her hand and condensation flows into her palm. It tastes sweet and cloudy, and she lays back against his coat, eyes shut.

It's a perfectly nice planet.

Until they shoot her.

* * *

_he is speaking to her in Gallifreyan, soft and gentle, and for a moment she thinks of the way he calls her sweetheart when he thinks she can't hear him_

_I never tell you how pretty you are, but it's just sometimes I think if I start I might not be able to stop_

_for a moment, she feels something warm break open in her chest, not blood, but something that reminds her of werewolves and frozen waves and ice in her hair_

_or how brilliant I think you are, clever and funny and kind and you deserve more than to die in a medical bay, Rose_

_for a moment, she remembers, why, exactly, he is worth the monsters, even if he happens to be one sometimes _

_I don't know if I ever said, but you mean the universe to me, and I_

_and that glowing feeling blooms to her toes, her lungs, her fingers and spine, racing up vertebrae, settling itself behind her retina where it sparks and burns_

_oh, I'd tell you every day if I could_

_she makes her choice _

* * *

Rose Tyler opens her eyes.

He doesn't let them close.


End file.
